Networking a Japanese and English Computer

[Guest]

Is it possible to network a Japanese computer and an English Computer
together? The desktop computer is Japanese (Windows XP Home Edition with SP2)
and the English computer is a laptop (Windows XP Home Edition with SP2) This
is also my first time with networking and I'm not very sure on how to network
or what to look for when I do it.
help with detailed instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Malke]

Is it possible to network a Japanese computer and an English Computer
together? The desktop computer is Japanese (Windows XP Home Edition
with SP2) and the English computer is a laptop (Windows XP Home
Edition with SP2) This is also my first time with networking and I'm
not very sure on how to network or what to look for when I do it.
help with detailed instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I don't see why not. The first thing to ask yourself is what kind of
network you want - what do you want to accomplish? If you will be
sharing broadband Internet access as well as files and printers, the
easiest thing to do is buy a cable/dsl router. Here is a link to a
simple explanation of networking from Linksys:

http://www.linksys.com/edu/

Of course, you don't have to buy Linksys equipment! After you've gone
through the "Educate Me" links at the Linksys site, if you need more
help, post back to this thread.

Malke

 

[Ron Lowe]

Is it possible to network a Japanese computer and an English Computer
together? The desktop computer is Japanese (Windows XP Home Edition with
SP2)
and the English computer is a laptop (Windows XP Home Edition with SP2)
This
is also my first time with networking and I'm not very sure on how to
network
or what to look for when I do it.
help with detailed instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The underlying TCP/IP etc will all work OK.

But I can foresee problems with network machine names
and share names using incompatible character sets.

I'd say it's strictly a suck-it-and-see situation.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Malke, just to add some more detail... the desktop computer is wired
and the laptop can be either wired or wireless cause we have both. We have a
Linksys wireless g broadband router. I however am not sure which network
setup wizard to use (wireless or home/office network) or which computer to
start off with. Sometimes i get some errors and I dont know if it works at
all cause nothing shows up in My Network Places or even if im looking in the
right place. Also I have tried networking the Japanese XP desktop to another
laptop which has a Japanese windows 98SE on it. It is completely wireless
since i sorta broke the card for it I find that the Linksys "How to
Network" guide doesnt really help a great deal as it doesnt show how to go
through the wizard. The network im trying to achieve is one where the desktop
and laptops connect to the internet through the router directly and can also
share files. Resedential in otherwords.

 

[Malke]

Thanks Malke, just to add some more detail... the desktop computer is
wired and the laptop can be either wired or wireless cause we have
both. We have a Linksys wireless g broadband router. I however am not
sure which network setup wizard to use (wireless or home/office
network) or which computer to start off with. Sometimes i get some
errors and I dont know if it works at all cause nothing shows up in My
Network Places or even if im looking in the right place. Also I have
tried networking the Japanese XP desktop to another laptop which has a
Japanese windows 98SE on it. It is completely wireless since i sorta
broke the card for it I find that the Linksys "How to Network"
guide doesnt really help a great deal as it doesnt show how to go
through the wizard. The network im trying to achieve is one where the
desktop and laptops connect to the internet through the router
directly and can also share files. Resedential in otherwords.

So you haven't found the language differences to matter? Another poster
(might have been Ron Lowe) thought there might be problems with that.

Putting that aside for the moment, here's how to set up your network
(ignore the wizard):

1. On the wired desktop, open your browser and go to the router's
configuration. With Linksys, that is usually http://192.168.1.1
[Enter]. Then enter your username and password (check the manual for
defaults if you didn't change it).

2. Go to the wireless settings and set the SSID to something you like (I
wouldn't leave it on the default), make sure it is broadcasting. Check
the channel, although most connecting machines will find it
automatically. Then enable security and choose the encryption that all
of your wireless hardware understands - if everything is new and
understands WPA, great. Otherwise set it to WEP and create a WEP key.
Write all of this information down.

3. All computers should be set to get their IP addresses automatically
under TCP/IP properties in networking. Make sure they are all in the
same workgroup for ease and consistency. Make sure all computers have
unique machine names (which are not the same as a user name - don't
have a machine named "Bob" and a user account named "Bob") and you
create identical user accounts and passwords on all machines.

4. On all wireless machines, go into the settings for the wireless
network and you should see your own network as available. Set the
properties for it, matching the WEP key. Unchecking the box that says
"the key is automatically provided" will let you enter the key. Allow
Windows to handle the wireless (make sure box is checked) and make it
"only connects to preferred networks".

5. On each machine share out desired resources and make sure the
permissions are set correctly.

Here are some good links about networking:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
http://www.wown.info/
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/
http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm - Small Network Troubleshooter by
Hans-Georg Michna
Steve Winograd
http://www.bcmaven.com/networking/faq.htm
http://www.bcmaven.com/networking/myths.htm

Malke

 

[Malke]

Sorry for the extra post, but I also want to add that on all computers
make sure you've added your lan to the firewall's exceptions and/or as
trusted. On my firewalls, I use an IP range of
192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254.

Malke